Spike Lee’s ‘Oldboy’ Doesn’t Even Make A Million Dollars…

I can’t even believe the headline myself. Maybe I took a hammer to the head?

Even with big names like Spike Lee, Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen, Sharlto Copley, and Samuel Jackson, FilmDistrict’s Oldboy scored one of the weakest Thanksgiving openings of all time, estimating a dismal $850,000 in five days, though the film bowed at just 583 locations (not technically a wide release), Variety reports.

Even with the negative press and weak reviews, it’s a shocker to see the film get such a small release, and even more bizarre to see it not even pull in $1M over the course of a whopping 5 day holiday weekend. This has easily got to be one of the biggest flops in recent memory. Ouch.

AROUND THE WEB

COMMENTS

31 Comments

Vadicta

It’s an uneeded remake, I never saw a trailer for it, and it that awful-looking Jason Statham flick was in every theater around me instead of this. Honestly, I’m not sure who they expected to go see it.

bozodeathgod

Unecessary remake says it all.

Ultrazilla

This movie isn’t even playing within a fifty mile radius, so they’re not really helping their cause much. But to be honest, adventure, comedy, spectacle, and children’s…those are the movies that do well during the holidays. Not violent, horrific tales of abuse and vengeance.

Canucklehead

Not in my family:-)

Kroork

I wanna see it but I can’t afford to right now 🙁 and I have seen it’s only playing in two theaters in the whole city ! Both on the south side!

Evil_Flip

I’ve seen it. I didn’t think it was a terrible movie, just not that great either. Just very mediocre. And it’s better than Carrie, but that doesn’t say much xD

FredHead94

I agree. Unneeded. Plus, the trailer gave most of the movie away. I felt I’ve already seen it. Which I have. A better version. Plus, I don’t think Spike Lee is on many peoples’ good list right now, mainly mine.

pyrepunk

1. It was an unnecessary remake as said above ^^^
2. The marketing and initiation of this film was done all wrong & most of the people who would have went to see it or did were probably fans of the original.
3. It felt like they made no attempt to take the film any further than the original, they just transitioned it poorly into US theaters and made no attempt to out-twist the original. Which could have been done, but like anyone here who has the ability or position could or would be smart enough to do that.

I was really hoping this was going to be good but from what I’ve seen I’m better off keeping my favor in the original.

divisionbell

If it was playing near me I’d go see it. It’s not around here and there have been almost no advertisements for it

Polsdofer

Whats Oldboy and why’s it a big deal?

Lion7718

Exactly..

chambertlo

It’s one of the greatest Korean films of all time that was needlessly remade by a talentless director for a moronic audience.

John Marrone

So much negativity surrounding this you’d think Obama made it. Its a movie. Watch it. It will entertain you. Stop being so anal. Thats my two cents.

Polsdofer

It will entertain you, unless it dosent.

Palkotaz

Watching the Oldboy remake would be like watching a remake of the Sixth Sense. If you’ve seen the twist, you really can’t relive that moment of shock. The only reason I wanted to watch it was to compare it to the original, and for that I can wait till a home release, over hunting down a nearby theater that will actually play it.

DBZEROGRAVITY

negative press is negative press. was it much different than the original? no. was it better? imo yes, but I’m not a big fan of the original anyway… is it the worst movie (or even remake) ever? far from it

minya

OK, so another ‘Spike Lee Joint’ bombed? And this is news? He should have put Madea in it…

superchopper

kharma’s a bitch

moviegeeksunited

No movie is necessary. The first OLDBOY, as great as it was, wasn’t ‘necessary’. Spike’s new version just isn’t a good movie – and I don’t think it would be a good movie if the original didn’t exist. And it did do over a million dollars over the 5 day weekend. It actually did 1.25 million, I think.

djblack1313

i honestly never saw even 1 tv spot for this. not one. in fact until i started seeing (on many/most movie sites) “OLDBOY A FLOP!” titles/articles today i had no idea it was already released. i figured it’s release was Christmas or just after since there was no advertisement for it.

MovieGeek

It made 1,250,000. It made over a million, not under. But yeah its a flop. But why only 583 screens?

johnnydakota

I don’t feel bad for Spike Lee. Guy’s a fucking tool and hasn’t made anything worth talking about since “Inside Man”. I feel bad for the actors involved and that’s about it.

SonOfVoorhees

Was made on a budget of $30million, not that high considering. Though given that Thanksgiving is more about family, i think this was released on the wrong date. Though given the subject matter of the original, this would have been better as an indie budgeted movie and a smaller cast set. After all the story is only about one man finding out what happened to himself.

Im still going to watch this at some point, probably when its released on Lovefilm for rental.

diapers

I saw zero marketing effort in normal media outlets. I only knew of its release because I troll sites like this one. The only other peeps I know who were stoked are all fans of violent asian flicks.

carlos.filipe

You can’t remake a movie like Oldboy, it was too original for a remake to work. Infernal Affairs was not shocking or original, was good… that’s why The Departed was espectacular, cause it was a remake of a movie that was forgotten.

viking1983

did mr d call elizabeth olsoen a big name? no wonder no one takes him seriously here, she can’t act at all

Psychotic_Rabbit_666

I never saw the original. but me and my friends snuck in to it and it was pretty awesome.

chambertlo

Spike Lee is a horrible director that should stick to making ethnic/racist films. Those seem to be the only thing he is good at. Perhaps now Hollywood will start to be a little more cautious with the movies they pick to be remade, particularly when the original is well-made. I hope Lee disappears from the cinema with his garbage.

drmodem

I’m a fan of the original but I was put off by the horrible marketing campaign. Also Lee’s reaction to the allegations that the poster designs were stolen. That, and I’m not paying money to see a remake of a great film by someone who writes every word of their tweets with a capital letter. What a dick.

atanac

Spike Lee is more famous for his racism than for being a talented director. As long as there are blacks with money though he’ll find financing but I will insure he never gets a penny of this white boy’s money! Oh, and as for his remake of Oldboy…karma’s a bitch Spike!

It’s been said already, but Oldboy is not a true “holiday” film. People don’t want to see a bloody and brutal tale of revenge during the Thanksgiving and Christmas. They’re all about those cheesy and shitty holiday comedies, animation films, and more lighthearted films.

A few more important factors to consider:

-Josh Brolin is not a draw in any way shape or form.

-And yeah, A LOT of people don’t like Spike Lee. Personally, I’m indifferent to his work, and yeah, I feel whatever glory days he had or might have had are long gone. Anyway, we live in a viral age, where it’s easy to access videos on the internet, print interviews are easily accessible via the internet, so those, who don’t like or can’t stand Lee will have more than enough reasons to avoid shelling out any cash for anything with his name attached to it.

Also, I recently saw the original for the first time not too long ago, and it was a GREAT film. I haven’t seen the remake, but I imagine it’ll be hard or damn near impossible to match or top the original’s quality.

And there’s a big multiplex near me, that was showing (and they still are) the Oldboy remake….but I had little to no desire to see it. Except for the trailers and TV spots I saw on here and YouTube, I honestly can’t remember a real push to SERIOUSLY promote Oldboy. It’s like they were hoping fans of the original would do the promoting for them through word of mouth.

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